BACKERS SAY MARKETPLACE A BIG DRAW

Boston's popular Faneuil Hall Marketplace was developed around the building that served as the public market during the city's Colonial era.

The glass-enclosed pavilions of Baltimore's Harborplace overlook the National Aquarium and a picturesque harbor filled with chartered boats and pleasure craft.

The "festival marketplace" planned for downtown Orlando will be built on a city parking lot.

But the absence of historic character and lack of an attractive natural setting may be the only unconventional features of the recently announced $14 million addition to downtown.

Although it's not the biggest downtown project on the drawing boards, Orlando officials and retail experts are hoping a gaily designed complex of small boutiques, gift shops, food stalls, restaurants and bars will draw thousands of new visitors -- tourists and Central Floridians who otherwise wouldn't have a reason to come downtown -- and spark a shopping revival.

"I just see it as the motor that's going to drive the retail resurgence" downtown, said Jim Kersey, vice president of Lincoln Property Co., the development giant selected two weeks ago by the city to build the marketplace. While the marketplace will be tourist-oriented -- Kersey expects visitors to account for 62 percent of the sales -- it also is expected to attract locals. Nearly one-third of the sales should come from Central Florida residents, he said. More than half of those will be residents who live more than 20 minutes from downtown.

Assuming negotiations with the city go smoothly, the market is slated to open in the summer or fall of 1987, at the same time Lincoln opens its massive Sun Bank Center project across Church Street. Among the issues to be resolved are how much rent developers will pay to develop the parking lot and how replacement parking will be provided.

The marketplace idea is not new. From Boston to Baltimore, Norfolk, Va., to Toledo, Ohio, city officials are turning to so-called festival marketplaces to help spark a downtown turnaround. In Florida, marketplaces will open within a few years in Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami.

Unlike traditional shopping malls, which typically are anchored by department stores or supermarkets, the major businesses in a festival marketplace usually are restaurants or entertainment.

"It's recreational shopping," said Mel Levine, the marketing consultant from Boston who has been advising Orlando on strategies for improving the retail climate in downtown. Festival marketplaces sell the kinds of items consumers buy on impulse and also provide colorful settings for people-watching.

Entertainment also is important. Kersey said Lincoln will hire a staff to put on daily events at the marketplace.

But can the oft-repeated formula of a cutesy shopping mall chock full of chocolate chip cookie stores and kite shops really reshape downtown?

The lesson in Norfolk, where the Waterside marketplace will celebrate its second anniversary in June, provides some tempered optimism.

"It has certainly helped downtown," said Cathy Coleman, executive director of the Downtown Norfolk Development Corp., a merchants' association. But because the waterfront market is three blocks from the city's traditional shopping area and shoppers don't have to pass it to reach the new marketplace, it also has had "a negative effect" on those other areas.

Coleman believes that in the long run, the marketplace, which is about the same size as the one planned for Orlando, will have a positive impact. Aside from sparking other office and shopping developments, the market brings in new tourists and "those people do explore the rest of the city."

Marketplace developers in Orlando are counting on the same strategy, particularly because the marketplace site is just across the railroad tracks from Church Street Station, the fourth-largest tourist attraction in the state.

Through joint marketing programs and some uniform architectural features, Lincoln's marketplace will be tied to the entertainment and dining complex that draws 1.5 million visitors per year. Developers also are considering building a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks to join the two.

Unlike Church Street Station, the marketplace will not have a $5.95 cover charge. But Church Street founder Bob Snow said the two projects will complement each other. During the day, "we don't nearly utilize our operations" to their fullest, said Snow. "Most festive marketplaces, including Faneuil Hall, have the same problem we have, after 7 o'clock at night."

Tom Kohler, executive director of the Orlando Downtown Development Board, said he expects that together, the two projects will draw 2 million visitors annually. He said it will attract local residents to downtown at night and on weekends, times when they normally are not there.

The challenge for the city and merchants, who hope to beef up downtown shopping, is to get some of those people to patronize other downtown stores as well.

At least one downtown merchant can hardly wait to try. Sam Behr has operated his shoe store on Church Street for 35 years, sticking it out through many of the lean years when other downtown businesses fled to the suburban shopping malls.

Today, the shoe seller, who is more widely known as the pitchman of the "tires ain't pretty" television commercials, said his decision looks like it will pay off in spades.

When the marketplace opens, having a business on Church Street will be "like being in heaven," he said. "What are all these people going to do for shoes?"